This invention relates to the purification of process exhausts, and more particularly to method and apparatus by which to render process exhausts ecologically acceptable.
Substantially all industrial processes presently exhaust to the rivers, lakes, oceans and atmosphere such large quantities of contaminants as to present an ecological hazard. Further, the loss of such potentially valuable substances represents a significant cost factor in process operation. Examplary of such processes are those involved in asphalt plants, charcoal plants, dry kilns, foundries, printing shops, garbage burners, diesel trucks, coal burners and many others. These contaminants include dust, noxious and odoriferous gases, solid organic materials and others.
Considerable effort has been made heretofore to reduce the exhaust of such contaminants to ecologically acceptable levels, while simultaneously recovering valuable substances for further use. In general, such efforts have been unsuccessful, primarily because of the inability to process, effectively, the vast magnitudes of such exhausts on an economical basis.